PBA Has YouTube Videos Removed

"So lame. The PBA should be doing all they can to promote the art of bowling, not stifle it. Instead, they have their own paid video subscription service on their website. I'm about as big a bowling fan as you can get, but I will not pay the PBA to have access to their video library." -- YouTube comment

The PBA has purportedly persuaded YouTube to remove one private source's posted videos of all recent televised championships because of copyright infringement. Now I'm the first to admit that I don't know how the copyrighting of televised sports content works. More particularly, I don't know what the legal technicalities happen to be concerning the uploading to YouTube of PBA telecasts carried by ESPN and other networks.

What I do know is that we bowling fans who miss the telecasts or who don't subscribe to cable or who live abroad could almost always find them on YouTube a day or so after the telecast. This suggests that even if it technically violated copyright law to place this content on YouTube without the PBA's consent, the powers-that-be, who were surely aware of what was going on, looked the other way instead of enforcing the law governing this matter.

And it stands to reason that they would. PBA telecasts, unlike movies and music that you buy and watch or listen to any time you wish, are generally shown once only ESPN or on whatever other network they might happen to appear, unless they reappear on an "oldies" channel years afterward. Of course, it's true that a bowling fan devoted enough to fork out the money for a paid subscription to PBA Xtra Frame can watch these telecasts on demand there. But what seems doubtful is that most people who want to see a PBA telecast after it airs are going to subscribe to Xtra Frame in order to watch it there.

So, why did the PBA do this? Did they think that if people can't watch these telecasts on TV when they air, they'll subscribe to Xtra Frame to watch them or that they'll be more motivated to watch them when they air instead of thinking they can always catch them later on YouTube? Or does the PBA plan to post them to YouTube themselves, as they have in the past, and they don't want any competition from private parties? I don't know, even though I'm going to try to find out.

At this point, I don't want to second guess the PBA. They are struggling to prosper in a marketplace filled with diverse competition for the public's time and money, and I don't blame them for doing what they think is best for the cause. I just hope it's wise to deny potential viewers the opportunity to view the telecasts after the fact on YouTube when it seems to me that the PBA wouldn't want to tick people off or reduce the public's exposure to their product. And if it isn't so wise, I hope they reverse course or at least post the videos in question to YouTube themselves via the PBA Channel before too long.

Stay tuned for further developments on this front.